Only Words Can Tell You How I Feel

TAP, Southend-on-Sea, UK
31 March - 27 April 2014

'Only Words Can Tell You How I Feel' is the culmination of Andro Semeiko's month long residency at TAP gallery and studios, selected by Andrew Hunt and Mike Nelson. The exhibition is a multi-layered exploration of a creative practitioner's journey of thought, occupying five exhibition spaces at TAP with the seven-meter high winch room at its heart. The project delves into the past and present of TAP and its surrounding area, conflating fact and fiction, to produce rich and compelling narratives.

Semeiko worked closely with the TAP team and studio artists to generate a site responsive dramatisation of a creative journey. He has made a series of small portraits based on 18th and 19th century British portraits of writers, artists and magicians, relating them to creative practitioners at TAP studios. He interviewed the practitioners and solicited artist Amy McKenny to write a text from TAP's collective voice based on the recordings. Semeiko used three of TAP's gallery spaces for empirical research into three days of his own studio practice exploring gestures from J.M.W. Turner's work, informed by his previous investigation into the 'emotion-laden mark' with cognitive psychologist Dr Lawrence Tailor. This concluded with a Dionysian feast in the main gallery space. While in the winch room a structure of a well has been recreated. Writer Tom Morton wrote an audio piece for it chronicling a journey of creative thought, using as a reference point a spirit living at the bottom of a well in Ray Bradbury's 'The One Who Waits'. Listen to the audio  here   >    

An artist book was produced at TAP print room to coincide with the exhibition (limited edition of 150 copies). It features images of Semeiko’s paintings and Amy McKenny’s and Tom Morton’s texts. It also contains drawings of the water well at TAP, which can be assembled into a DIY Victorian viaorama. Digital version of the book is available to read and download here   >  

contemporary art, installation, painting

www.t-a-p.org.uk/andro-semeiko.html